[2.4] EK AoF Iron Will Chieftain - Very high HP/regen; great DPS; Uses Roth's Reach; Non-meta

Welcome to the EK AoF Iron Will Chieftain guide for Path of Exile 2.4 - Atlas of Worlds!

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The main concept of this build is converting the damage of Ethereal Knives (EK), a physical damage spell, to fire damage using Avatar of Fire (AoF), the keystone near the Templar passive tree, and The Signal Fire, a unique quiver. I wanted to make a physical spell build with that quiver because the added fire damage is very high - it corresponds to a level 19 Hatred aura. It also converts 50% of the damage so it works well with AoF.

Since we're going to use a quiver to cast a spell, the main hand weapon becomes restricted to bows. Normal bows don't have a lot to add to spells, so we're down to looking for some good unique bows. Roth's Reach is a great option for EK, as it provides two mods that greatly improve it: projectile speed and chaining. Projectile speed allows EK to travel further, hitting enemies from afar, which adds to survivability and reach. Chaining greatly improves the clearspeed with EK, since it fires a volley with lots of projectiles (similarly to what happens with Split Arrow).

Finally, the build uses the Iron Will support in its EK link setup, taking advantage of the very high Strength attribute that can be achieved with the Marauder tree and the Chieftain ascendancy. The Iron Will mindset is interesting because it's offensive and defensive at the same time: your damage is increased by your total Strength divided by 5, and your base maximum life is increased by your total Strength divided by 2. This build can achieve 1000 total Strength, so that's 200% increased damage and 500 to maximum life!

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Notice: After making the build I realized that another player named Noisnamalark had followed exactly the same train of thought of Signal Fire + Roth's Reach. His guide can be found here. However, I still thought I should make my own guide, as we took different approaches to the build. He made it a very offensive, high DPS build, while I focused on making it with Iron Will and staking tons of Strength and life, achieving a life pool of 8k+.

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• THE GUIDE
  

Passive tree at level 87: link

From the passive tree we get: Fire damage, Spell damage, Projectile damage and Fire Penetration; Chance to ignite and Projectile speed; lots of Armour, Life and Life regeneration; increased elemental resistances; Endurance Charges; a bit of Cast speed; 4 jewel sockets; a LOT of Strength to go with the Iron Will mindset; and 2 keystones: Avatar of Fire, which helps convert the EK damage, and Blood Magic, which lets us cast spells from the life pool instead of mana (removing all mana) and also unlocks very efficient life nodes behind it.

From the ascendancy tree we get: more Fire damage, more life regeneration, more strength, life leech from fire damage, more defenses overall, and endurance charge generation.

Gear at level 87:

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Comments on gear"]The gear includes three unique items: Roth's Reach, The Signal Fire, and Kaom's Heart (all shown in the spoiler above). Kaom's Heart is not strictly necessary but highly recommended.

Apart from the uniques, you want to have Strength rolls in every single piece of gear to take advantage of the Iron Will support and gain a lot of life at the same time. Starting at around 700~800 strength, the Iron Will support provides more DPS than the Added Fire Damage support in this build.

Other than that, look for the usual mods in your rare items: maximum life, increased armour and elemental resistances. For the Jewelry I like to have some cast speed / spell damage to help with DPS if possible. The belt can be a Rustic Sash base for increased damage, Leather Belt base for increased life, or Heavy Belt base for a compromise between the two. I prefer the Heavy Belt because it's a balanced choice and also much cheaper than the other bases to find one with great rolls.

I'm a little lazy with flasks so I have 3 life flasks there which can be replaced with any utility you may prefer. Keep in mind the Atziri flask won't work well with this build because AoF prevents any damage other than fire being dealt. Life flasks can be modified with the Sapping prefix, which increases the amount of life recovered with the downside of removing mana when used. This is a Blood Magic build, so that downside doesn't affect it. Apart from that I like running two Quicksilver Flasks, one with Bleed removal and the other with curse removal. But in the and it really comes down to personal preference with flasks.[/spoiler]

Gem link setup:

[spoiler]Your main skill is Ethereal Knives in a 5-Link or hopefully a 6-Link with this setup:

EK - Spell Echo - Controlled Destruction - Added Fire Damage OR Iron Will - Fire Penetrarion - Empower

I usually leave Empower for last (the 6th link) even though it is the support that contributes the most for DPS, because it's expensive to get a level 3 one, or even a corrupted level 4 one.

Added Fire Damage will be replaced by Iron Will once you reach a certain amount of Strength, around 600~700, which is when IW becomes better.

The other supports are a bit more basic and perhaps self-explanatory: Spell Echo is usually the most powerful DPS boosts for most spells due to repetition + more cast speed; Controlled Destruction is a big more multiplier with a downside that doesn't really affect anything; and Fire Penetration is essencial for pure fire damage and also works as a more multiplier, even though it doesn't show numerically in the tooltip damage.

A note on Elemental Focus: it's another support gem and it has a higher multiplier than Controlled Destruction, but its downside is that the skill won't be able to inflict status ailments. This downside makes it not worth it for this build to use this support because we need to inflict ignite for several reasons: it deals considerable damage due to all the fire damage scaling; enemies who are burning take increased damage because of some passive skills allocated; and due to the Chieftain ascendancy, killing burning enemies has a chance to provide an Enduramce Charge.

The other gem setups are supports for your character. They come down to personal preference a bit, but you'll want a movement skill to teleport / get around, enduring cry to help maintain endurance charges, and maybe a Cast When Damage Taken setup and a totem or golem. This is what I use:

Movement and Enduring Cry setup:
Blink Arrow - Enduring Cry - Faster Attacks - Increased Duration

Faster Attacks lets you teleport faster when using Blink Arrow. Increased Duration allows the life regeneration from Enduring cry to last a little longer and your copy created by blink arrow too. It's just there because there's nothing better, really, but it's kinda nice.

Cast When Damage Taken setup:
CWDT - Molten Shell - Enfeeble - Increased Duration

Molten Shell gives you a nice temporary armour buff which is scaled by the passives allocated in the tree. Enfeeble is a nice defensive curse. Incresed Duration makes both skills last longer.

Totem support:
Flame Totem - Faster Casting - Iron Will - Fire Penetration

Because of all the fire damage scaling, the Flame Totem can actually add a bit of DPS on top of your Etheral Knives. Not a whole lot, but it's noticeable. It also serves as a distraction and sometimes monsters will attack the totem instead of you. Finally, because it casts its fire spell really fast, it helps keep enemies ignited, and we get bonus damage against ignited enemies because of passive skills allocated both in the normal tree and ascendancy tree. The totem also leeches 1% of its damage back to you as life because of the Chieftain ascendancy.

And that's all for the gem setup. There's nothing socketed in the body armour as you should be using Kaom's Heart there, which has no sockets. [/spoiler]

Bandits:

[spoiler]Normal: Help Oak for 40 life.
Cruel: Kill all for an extra skill point, or help Alira for 5% cast speed, or help Oak for 16% increased physical damage. I killed all for the extra skill point as I tend to make skill-point-intensive builds and can use the extra one.
Merciless: Help Oak for extra endurance charge.[/spoiler]

Videos:

[spoiler]Tier 10 map with double beyond + Temporal Chains (it's a slow clear)

Twin Wasteland (Tier 11)[/spoiler]

This is... Interesting XD

10/10 for creativity on this one. It's pretty cool :)

That said, I don't think it's a top tier build of any kind; however, it's definitely functional and survivable with decent clear!

"

This is... Interesting XD

10/10 for creativity on this one. It's pretty cool :)

That said, I don't think it's a top tier build of any kind; however, it's definitely functional and survivable with decent clear!

Thanks for the feedback! I do tend to focus more on survivability than clearspeed.

What do you think is missing for the build? Just higher DPS/clearspeed or do you think it needs something else as well? Please keep in mind I'm currently running it with a 5-link and trying to get that 6-link which will be the Empower gem, and that should increase the DPS by a lot.

Updated the guide with some visuals, improved formatting and more information.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Updated with the gem link setup :)

Wouldn't this build be good running righteous fire?

"

SleepyHobo wrote:

Wouldn't this build be good running righteous fire?

I've thought about this. It would be necessary to change a few things, like getting more max fire res and slightly more regen, but it's possible if you want. I don't do it because I like the huge regen as a defensive mechanic.